Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant from NSF with "no-DEI" strings
National Science Foundation (NSF) had offered $1.5 million to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and the Python Package Index (PyPI), but the Foundation quickly became dispirited with the terms of the grant it would have to follow.
"These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'" Crary noted. "This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole."
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/python_foundation_abandons_15m_nsf/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca1478
Comments144
Hey look someone with integrity, morals, principles and balls. Sadly all four of those seem to be highly endangered traits.
One of our geology grants got hit for mentioning mineral inclusion. Total clown show.
Rocks are woke now.
Yeah, since rocks went all woke and stuff, they have really been rolling down hill...
My sediments exactly
Their metamorphosis has been a heavy topic to follow.
Gneiss!
Aww schist, here we go again!
The diversity of rocks you can find in the environment is truly stunning
Unironically yes ❤️
One of my recent software projects has an "ignore" list feature, but I guess I have to update the terminology to "include/exclude" if that means chuds will stay away.
Ooh I know what I'm using as variable names this week
An administration that uses LLMs and Ctrl + F and vibes for policy decisions that don't sound good even before you realize they don't make sense, and ignores courts and due process... it's a hazard to touch.
for real? Mentioning the wrong (key-) word gets you cancelled like this?
Yep. And Universities had to edit their papers to remove any "bad words".
We now get to experience what it would have been like if the Nazis had a negative IQ. Which is impressive to say, because some of them were totally deranged.
All they're doing here is ensuring that all of the really intelligent people leave and go live somewhere else.
Honestly this is magnificent. 🤡
It is all just so unbelievably stupid.
I’m deeply proud of Python for standing by its community and making the right decision.
How is it legal to basically say "We'll give you some money if you promise to keep the blacks out of your organisation"
You frame it as "don't discriminate based on skin color, as in don't hire a black person because they're black" while not saying any more of the quiet part out loud.
In a perfect world where nobody doing the hiring was ever even a little subconsciously racist, that would be perfectly reasonable, yeah.
Though that said we end up with a lot of nuance in the real world. Let's say there's a traditionally marginalised, opposed racial group. Let's say times have changed somewhat and people suddenly accept them.
Well, the generational and cultural weight is still going to have a lasting effect even if times have changed, and it may be more difficult for people from that group to afford a good education, good job, good home, etc.
The point being that even if we all stopped being racist today and hired purely based on how good an employee someone will be, we're likely still unknowingly skewing our decisions based on past social racial issues.
I'm probably not putting it very well but hopefully you get the idea! It's probably pretty common knowledge anyway I guess haha, seems pretty obvious to me and I don't even think about this stuff much :-)
Anyway, point is, we do still need to work as a society on ensuring diversity and fairness even when we're not racist at all - I think the saying might be "Equity over Equality", or such?
Obviously the USA Government are fascists, so they're more interested in wiping out groups they don't like, but they're just another in a long line of evil governments that will eventually fall, no point thinking too deeply about why they're being evil. They'll eventually die off as all fascist regimes do. Hopefully we won't have to fight a World War against them this time.
For context, I am an old white man engineer. I've worked in large and small companies over my career. Almost without fail, even with DEI policies in place, a non-white person or woman still had to be 10x more qualified than their white male counterparts to be hired. Once in the organization, they were generally put into some dead end role while far less qualified white men were advanced to higher positions. When I worked in the bible belt southeastern USA, you had the added factor of protestant christians ruling the roost too.
That's depressing, but at least there were people like yourself who understood the backwards injustice of it all.
Some people and places have to be kicked and dragged into the modern day, alas.
Because conservatives convinced people that DEI was literally about filling a quotas at the cost of competency, because "controlling the narrative".
Because Congress and the Supreme Court have been captured entirely by fascists.
I suppose that this would be against the other part, the one relative to the federal anti-discrimination laws.
Likely why it was not accepted
Yeah, even if they weren't willing to take a principled stance, that's really dangerous. Especially with how temperamental these fascists are.
It's not even on principle. From a pure business perspective, giving a funder the right to claw back money you previously spent is insanity.
NSF: "We'll give you money as long as you don't hire minorities".
Python: "Get fucked."
Chad shit
Besides the anti-woke bullshit, it's just a bad idea to accept. It is absolutely not normal for a grant to have stipulations that if you violate some vaguely defined criteria somewhere in your organization, it can be clawed back at a later time. That's a huge liability for an organization to take on that they may suddenly owe a million dollars some time in the future.
I mean basically yeah, "DEI" and "Woke" are right wing buzzwords that basically can mean whatever, and the Trump admin et al know this. They could say "letting x people use this is woke" or "hiring y people is DEI". The Anti-DEI movement is just an excuse for actual discrimination because now we have people being fired not because they are unfit for their job, but because they're from a minority who was deemed more qualified than someone who was White, Male and Cishet.
I mean Hegseth fired the Chief of Naval Operations because she was a woman. Straight up.
What a time we live in. It really feels like a fever dream
The text actually required them to not violate anti-discrimination laws.
What's the size of the rock you've been living under in the past 10 months or so?
It's not a rock, it's a giant glass of flavoured water
Which under the current administration means not annoying the great all-powerful orange one. It certainly has no relation to the actual law.
it's my meat pumpkin
There's an often repeated theme in philosophy that any gift that comes with conditions is actually just business.
I would use the term extortion, but yup.
Oh for sure, Trumps business style is about extortion rather than collaboration. He has to win and they have to lose.
It baffles me that any business is prepared to get into bed with him. It's practically a meme at this point that he screws everyone over and doesn't pay his debts and with him now being president of the United States, there is zero chance you'll be able to put a lien on him.
"getting bought" is more fitting imo.
And a nice little view behind the curtains how the fascists operate.
Even when it's reverse? grants being conditional on DEI action has been a long time thing already
I'd say so. Yes
Fucking hell, good for the PSF for maintaining their values. I'll make a donation when I get paid. I'm sure they would appreciate it if any one else can spare a dollar or two.
https://psfmember.org/civicrm/contribute/transact/?reset=1&id=2
Edit: Added donation link
This should be the top comment. Now, excuse me. I've got a donation to go make.
ETA: Done. I felt dirty using Paypal, but I was being lazy, right up until Paypal barfed up some error saying "This credit card can't be used something something blah blah blah. Let's try a different one." In response to which I suddenly found the energy to go find the checkbook and an envelope.
Who on Earth actually still uses checks? Is it
20051995?I think I only ever had a chequebook with one account and I never used it, then the following bank didn't even ask me if I wanted one. I never really liked the fact that I have to write something on a piece of paper, I felt convinced I was going to screw it up and forget how to spell "twenty" or something.
My wife's uncle wanted a paper trail for things like paying the gardener, who didn't have a way of doing cards anyway.
The Seattle zoo also rejected federal funding with these strings. My wife lost her job because of it. Because it was just for one program and the no-DEI was organization wide…
Apparently the Portland Zoo signed it… No one expected that shit. We both let her parents know that this is because of their vote in another state.
Fuck yes, Python.
In 2 days the White House will order every companie to stop using python because of woke or something
Imagining all the llm dorks suddenly trying to learn typescript over the weekend
Or trying to control their mice population. Wait what?
It makes me very happy to think about
Or OpenCL.
I mean switching to OpenCL and not relying on CUDA would be great but I don't know how I feel about it.
To them I say "good luck, fuckers"
Congratulations for having a real spine and showing the world that money isn't everything
Thank you python team
Aren't these contradictory? 🤔
They're really pulling the childish 'We're just going to make up a fake acronym using DEI' card in an official government communication?
This is a clown show
No. Employment is finite. Including someone means excluding someone else.
Not necessarily. But your reaction is a good illustration of what the conservative narrative is when it comes to DEI.
DEI isn't about excluding a majority to promote a minority, but to make sure being part of a minority doesn't handicap someone.
But some people feels that it is in their right to exclude people they don't like, which can be understable when it comes to not recruit someone who stole from you previously, but in most case it is based on prejudices against specific minorities. And that's the main problem.
Those prejudices, most of the times based on misunderstandings, fear of the unknown, if not jealousy (antisemitism in Europe is often based on the idea that Jews perceived overall wealth is stolen from others).
Those prejudices greatly diminishes (or, as you wrote, "steals") their chance to be chosed for well paid work (if not work at all), and to be represented in media like videogames (because of knee jerk reaction like that game where you steal back artifacts from museum got).
DEI, when not exaggerated to the extremes, is beneficiary for everyone involved. Recruiters find talents they wouldn't have previously considered, people broadens their horizon by learning others culture, philosophy and history. Who in their right mind would refuse that, other that self-centered bigots?
In my case I'm glad of the diversity of people I meet at work. I don't care if they are black or white, gay or straight, male, female, or anything in between. They are competent and hardworking, that's the only metrics that should matters.
Nice hallucination, clanker. Fuck off.
Yeah, sure, a clanker gonna do grammar mistakes that he corrects many days later after waking up.
I suppose in your world everything you hate is woke, and everyone that isn't like you is a clanker, right?
What DEI does (among others) is if there's two candidates for the same opening with the same exact qualifications, the more marginalized will be hired. Before that, it wasn't a random choice of lottery, but who looked "more trustworthy" (white) or "more competent" (neurotypical). White nationalists want to undo not only this, but to go back the days when blacks (etc.) were actually discriminated against, because their feelings and memories of calling someone "working like a n****r" (context: slavery + blacks in the segregation era often had to work way more for way less).
When I worked for the federal government, it meant outreach to minority communities, trying to get more to apply. Once they applied, they were on the same playing field as everyone else.
On a related note: Every time I see a video on Facebook of a crash caused by a tractor trailer, I see racist comments, guessing who the driver was, as though no white guy has ever wrecked a truck. It's insane. It's so deep in their heads that rational thought is gone.
Racists started to overanalize mistakes made by PoC as an attempt to try to discredit DEI practices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Eh, some DEI programs were discriminatory by having quotas, most were not. The one at my company was great, which was basically minorities giving talks about difficulties getting hired, promotions, etc. We didn't have quotas, just reports.
This exemplifies why the provision is so bad. DEI is a term of art, not a specific thing. Everyone is proud of PyPI for standing up for whatever they think DEI means, but they don't define or explain it so it doesn't actually mean anything. Or rather it can mean anything at all. That's the danger to the organization.
Yeah, I 100% respect Python for standing up to this nonsense. DEI should mean teaching people about their biases so we can do a better job of goving opportunities to those best able to do the job, instead of whoever is liked by the hiring team.
Grants like this shouldn't have stipulations about how the project is run, only about the priorities, if any.
My point is merely that DEI programs can be discriminatory, not that they are.
I bet if they solicit crowd funding to replace this grant they’d easily surpass its dollar value.
Is there an existing way to donate to the Python Foundation?Never mind, answered my own question: https://www.python.org/psf/donations/
Thanks for doing the research for us lazy folks, donation sent!
That is not a great donation page. I'd love to see a one click paypal button on there.
Good for them. It is good to see people do something right for once.
After growing up watching things like Bill Nye, seeing names like the NSF saying shit like this is like an actual fucking nightmare reality. It's just so incredibly wrong.
The python foundation should have asked them to define the terms of the contract in a document. At least that way we would have had a legal definition of what woke means in their eyes. Because I'm reasonably confident that even they don't know.
Go team snake 🐍
based Python.
This makes me love python (the programming language) even more.
Jesus the current US administration are cartoonishly evil. History is not going to be kind to the United States. In 30 Years there is going to be a museum with a little plaque on the wall and it'll say "did you know the United States used to be a relevant world power?".
That's right. Fuck anti-DEI. DEI is the future and good.
Uncritical application of DEI methods without due consideration for the objectives isn't reasonable.
But signing a contract that says "if you do anything we can construe as DEI we can demand payback of all the support you falsely relied on" is like stepping on a landmine and hoping the fuse stops working before you have to step off.
DEI, otherwise known as hiring the right person for the job, regardless of label. It's wild that meritorious hiring principles aren't the norm in this country. Have to find out what you are before who you are matters.
DEI is nothing more than an acceptable form of racism.
Hiring people to meet quotas does not make a society better and does nothing to fix the root cause of inequalities.
Free access to quality education, healthcare and funding higher education for the people who can't afford it is how you fix things for the better. This is the future and good.
DEI is the equivalent of a small band aid over a putrid, gaping wound.
Quotas is just one small aspect of DEI.
Things like anonymous soliciting and punishing racism are others.
And even quotas are just a response to stupid people using their bias at their workplace while being blindly unaware of them.
The world is full of smart women and minorities. If there wasn't a bias we would be closer to 50% of managers not being white males.
I will admit I was mistaken, I forgot the quarterly company wide corporate email asking employees to not be openly racist at work.
Truly solving inequalities, one middle manager asking you to sign that you've read the email at a time.
The problem isn't that there isn't smart women and minorities, they exist. They're just crushed by the system. DEI won't solve that. DEI won't women and minorities the resources to achieve their dreams, DEI won't give handicapped people access to a better life.
DEI is a bandaid on a festering, maggot filled wound. People slap it on and are like "wow, what a good job", and it drives me crazy.
DEI has been found to be a net good to society by numerous studies. You just get your panties in a bunch because you are ignorant af.
Social studies are about worth as much as the paper they're written on. 60 years ago studies said black people were inferior. In 60 years it'll be something else. They always match the era they were made in.
The only true solution to inequality is actual action against the cause of inequality, not some feelgood quarterly corporate email asking employees to not be openly racist at work.
You call it a band aid but its more of a hammer. There are numerous systemic issues these policies force society to confront head-on and in meaningful ways.
Calling DEI racism is just a conservative dog whistle for "owie my privilege hurts" and ignores the other forms of discrimination DEI challenges head on.
In a perfect world, you are right - equality. But our world is far from perfect.
I guess we fundamentally disagree on the effectiveness of DEI policies at the workplace.
Especially in light of how incompetent this administration is, and how bad it is at clearly communicating ideas, they made the only sensible choice. Maybe there's more details in the grant terms itself, but from the article it looks like it just says "don't advance or promote DEI", and without explicitly defining what they mean by that they are setting up a trap.
PyPI is smart not to take the money.
For the record, it also say that they should not violate any anti-discrimination federal laws.
Good for them, standing on principle 😁
Trump's bullshit already violated those laws though. Repeatedly.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It’s a purchase of No DEI, not a donation.
I should use python more. I like when people have principles.
Based
what would happen if they took the money and didn't comply?
So even if they didn't violate the anti-DEI, whoever controls the US gov could just decide to claw back money PSF already spent...
Yeah, this is one of those terrible ideas even if you thought that, in theory, you were onboard with 'anti-DEI'.
Out of the blue the wrong person gets randomly pissed at you and invokes the highly subjective clause and suddenly you owe them $1.5M...
I think at this point it's not about money, it's about sending a message.
The way it's written it's impossible to know if you're complying or not. They might have just said "don't be woke" or "don't piss us off".
If they accepted it, saying "Diversity of libraries" could have get them into hot waters.
Now this is concerning. FOSS is diverse by default, because of the international nature. They noted that FOSS software can be a viable alternative to the easily controllable IT giants, which is why they want to nip in the bud this way?
Discrimination in the name of anti-discrimination
Good on ya, Gents.
Who is the person downvoting the two comments in here???
I mean, votes are public in the fediverse. I wouldn't try to read into the reasoning from a single downvoter too much though.
One downvote could be accidental. 2 downvotes in the same thread makes that seem less likely.
Downvoting/Upvoting doesn't mean the same thing that it does for everyone. Some use it as an agree/disagree. Some use it for whether a comment is productive and adds to the conversation or not. Some use it as a visibility score whether they think a comment should be seen by others first or whether there are other comments that are better. Some may agree with most everything in a comment except for one part and then downvote because of that.
I thought the point of the system is to mark down out of context comments that doesn't contribute to the post and not a I disagree button or super upvote.
Well, this isn't exactly stackoverflow...!
It is rare for things to be out of context...
Really, upvotes and downvotes are more or less... just... whatever made most people satisfied enough with a comment that they wanted to say they dis-/-liked it.
That might be the point of the system but in reality it is definitely used for like/dislike. Someone says that they like Windows and/or dislike Linux and they are guaranteed to get downvotes.
How do you see that?
Here is one place.
https://lemvotes.org/
I'm an instance admin.
Checks his comment history
Seems like an okay dude. Might even be one of my alts gone rogue. Dunno why the downvote
Probably someone on the White House's payroll who has a micropenis.
This isn't the first time I've seen this meme; but what's it from?
Batman Beyond. Takes place in a cyberpunk futuristic Gotham City, which feels like a natural direction that the crime ridden corrupt old city would transition into a new, technocorporate cyberpunk city full of crime.
Political commissars will be present at all meetings.
Good.
I'm glad that the people offering this money did not compromise on their ideals.
The PSF is (presumably) already required to comply with Federal anti-discrimination laws. Am I misreading the text or does it not actually create any new obligations for the PSF if they were to accept the grant?
They would be required to comply with the current administration's extremely biased and borderline illiterate interpretation of those laws.
You are misreading. These new obligations would require the PSF to violate those laws
It normalizes the anti-equity principles of the granting party, which now occupies the US govt.
The benefactor had already shown exactly how they treat people that aren't white Christian men, and it's up to schools, businesses and organizations like the Foundation to show resistance and inclusivity.
a) the wording makes it legally ambiguous what exactly would constitute violating the text. If it just said "comply with anti-discrimination laws," that would be one thing.
b) It applies to the whole organization, not just the group accepting and applying the grant, making it very challenging to meet the requirement.
c) Unlike just about any other grant, the funds can be clawed back in the future if something was violated. This is not normal for a grant, and puts the entire organization's existence in jeopardy if they suddenly find themselves owing millions of dollars that had already been spent.
It's very likely their legal council told them under no circumstances should they accept the terms.
If the article is to be believed there's also a provision there saying that they cannot engage in any programs that advance or promote DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). That part's new, and it's honestly not well defined. What is DEI? Racial quotas and discrimination? Cultural acknowledgements? Anti-discrimination? All these things have been called DEI. Some of these things have been called the other. Without clarity, the likeliest definition is "whatever annoys the administration".
Thank God that this doesn't prevent me from making anti DEI software using python.
I get that hiring practices should not discriminate, but in practice, what I have seen is the opposite of meritocracy. My company had many DEI hires, and they were the first to go when the money got tight.
I feel like you may not understand what DEI actually is. What, precisely, do you think a "DEI hire" is?
"DEI hire" has a different definition depending on whether you're talking about design or implementation.
Design: Non-discriminatory hiring practices where race, gender, age, religion and disabilities are overlooked. You get hired purely on your ability to do the job. Appropriate disability supports are given if required.
Implementation: Cheap foreign labour obscured by marketing spin and a calendar of wokewashing. Applicants are hired based on a quota that in no way reflects the talent pool.
Neither of those are DEI.
Also the "Implementation" part just sounds like what a really shitty company wound do, primarily trying to monetise on "DEI" ... wtf.
I see his fully fleshed explanation, but I don't see a counter? Not that I have any strong opinion, just curious what DEI actually means.
DEI isn't intended to be "colorblind", it explicitly suggests that employers give consideration to applicants from disparaged demographics, who may have otherwise been ignored during the application process. It doesn't, however, imply hiring quotas; there is no such thing as "a DEI hire".
Many people seem to confuse DEI for Affirmative Action, as evidenced above. This article explains the differences pretty succinctly: https://natlawreview.com/article/dei-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-v-affirmative-action-they-are-not-same
What meritocracy? A bunch of white dudes born into privilege that allows them the opportunities that the average person doesn't have?
Maybe they were the first to go because your company didn't want them around no matter how skilled they might. It seems odd that all of them would be let go. That implies that your company decided to only hire incompetent people because of the color of their skin and refused to hire any minorities that were competent.